


hourglass

by colloquialrhapsodist



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colloquialrhapsodist/pseuds/colloquialrhapsodist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the depths of the Desert Palace, the Angel of Death wallows in his manipulations. Written in 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hourglass

He would not disappear.  
  
He was polished, poise; he was airbrushed and regal and fine; he was made of riches and status and – and he was present, he fully  _existed_. Brahne… Brahne had not. Could not. Was not. She was made of sticky glue and smeared red lipstick and pocket change. Forgettable. Laughable. Truly the ugly woman’s flaws were elephantine in proportion, but her presence, her being? She could have been a speck of dust!

Oh no, oh no no  _no_  he was not thinking unjustly of the old elephant lady and her unsightly visage that drove away even the most hardy of audiences. No, indeed, let it not be thought that her meager part had been meaningless or unfulfilling; she’d been useful, in her time, and she was even more useful now. In death. Dead. Gone. Disappeared.  
  
His perfectly manicured nails curled around his dressing room mirror. A fat speck of dust was still a speck of dust.  
  
 **“Disgusting woman.”**  His eyes narrowed into slits, dark against his pale, pale face. **“Positively repugnant. Her single moment of shining elegance was when she departed the stage for _good._ ”** He remembered that glorious Eidolon; Bahamut’s reins had been his,  _were_  his – the King of Dragons, used to begin Kuja’s  _own_  reign. A steed like no other. Alexander would be yet greater.  **“It is truly a pity she will not see the grand finale.”**  
  
His lovely palace was empty; there was no one around to hear him mock and slander what was once one of the world’s greatest monarchs. It was barren, save for cold marble the color of sand, save for a thousand beautiful statues that despite his collection never seemed to satiate his lust for beauty, save for the beasts of his own creation that roamed the halls with their eyes crackling with magic, on the lookout for any prey that weren’t rat snakes or tiny sand mice that weaseled in through the cracks. Save for his perfect, perfect reflection. Save for the hourglass.  
  
The vermin would continue searching, but he – he was almost there. He was so close. He was so  _close_.  
  
 **“I’ll show Garland.”**  The words were a mutter – feverish, hasty. He idly picked at the end of one long, flowing sleeve, eyeing the colossal hourglass in the corner of the mirror, sand trickling steadily down to the case below. It was nearly filled; surely there were moments, _seconds_  to go before the final grain tumbled from the top. He could not stop glancing at it, his eyes flicking back to it in the same sort of fervid panic. Whenever the sand reached one precipice, it put him on edge, and he didn’t like it much.  
  
Still, he kept the hourglass. It was, after all, absolutely exquisite – and it wasn’t like he couldn’t turn it over once the top emptied itself. The cycle could continue, so long as someone remembered to turn it.  
  
 _Garland_  would have his – his own creation’s! – cycle end. Well. He was not  _like_  Brahne, the uncouth queen of vagrants, where such cycles  _could_  simply end. He was unlike Garland, as well, who was content to create puppets until he did something as foolish as  _dying_ , for he would not simply cease to be after the cycle that had been so strategically  _prepared_  for him wound down. They were nothing, nothing! Nothing but their own unwitting pawns, set up for destruction from the start. How stupid of them. How forgettable. How laughable.  
  
He would not disappear.  
  
Ha! Perish the thought! How could someone as important and striking as  _him_  just… vanish, one day? Poof! Just a body washed up on the shore! No, no, no, absolutely not, the audience would certainly be clamoring for an encore and what sort of director would he be if he didn’t offer them one? One after another after another after another after another after another after another?  
  
He was made of airbrushed regality and fine silk and polished poise and he would not suddenly just  _unravel_  one day. He choked; a chuckle got stuck in his throat, and it escaped in a high-pitched giggle. His eyes widened at the mirror and his painted lips spread and he  _laughed and laughed and laughed_ , he laughed until his throat felt like it would split in two, until tears welled up behind eyelashes coated in mascara, he laughed and laughed and laughed  
  
and laughed and  
  
laughed and  
  
didn’t remove his eyes from the corner of the mirror as he watched the last grain of sand  
  
fall  
  
and  
  
disappear.


End file.
